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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22367830">trace the scars to fit the pieces</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ships_to_sail/pseuds/ships_to_sail'>ships_to_sail</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Schitt's Creek</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Banter, Childhood Memories, Episode: s04e02 Pregnancy Test, Fluff, M/M, Scars, Soft Boys</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:53:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22367830</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ships_to_sail/pseuds/ships_to_sail</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Okay, smart ass. Your turn. What about this one?” David traces a line across the top of Patrick’s shoulder. It’s thin, and white, and looks sharp and cruel, like it must have hurt more than the scar would have you believe.</p><p>OR;</p><p>In the early light of dawn, two boys let the scars tell the stories</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Patrick Brewer/David Rose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>332</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>trace the scars to fit the pieces</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/storieswelove/gifts">storieswelove</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for storieswelove, who deserves it, just because.</p><p>All my love to Karin for the beta &lt;3 the rest of whatever this is is all my fault</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“What about this one?” He traces the three dots that fall in the middle of his upper thigh, barely visible under the dark, wiry hair in the dim apartment lighting. It’s near dawn, but neither of them want to sleep. Nevermind that they’ll have to open to store in an atrociously few number of hours. Sleep means daytime, which means no more Stevie’s apartment, no more time to look and touch and trace and just </span>
  <em>
    <span>be </span>
  </em>
  <span>together without the press of time and family.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He traces the three dots again, pressing against them gently with the edge of his fingernail, watching as the pale white takes it’s time fading back into a delicious pink.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alexis stabbed me with a fork when she was nine.” There’s laughter in his voice, and a bit of irritation, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did you do to deserve that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What makes you think I deserved it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Experience.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>entirely </span>
  </em>
  <span>unprovoked, thank you very much,” he huffs, giving Patrick’s short hair an extra little tug. Patrick makes a little noise, something subaural, a noise that David feels more than hears. “Okay, fine. I may or may not have given both of her favorite My Little Ponies to the Olsen twins, but in my defense, Mary Kate has always been a ruthless negotiator.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There it is,” Patrick says gently, and David can feel the smile he presses into the soft flesh of his abdomen, just below his sternum, where Patrick is resting his head, listening to David’s heart. He kisses David there, a sloppy wet kiss with a gentle follow-up of teeth, and David bucks slightly, ticklish.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay, smart ass. Your turn. What about this one?” David traces a line across the top of Patrick’s shoulder. It’s thin, and white, and looks sharp and cruel, like it must have hurt more than the scar would have you believe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was carrying a canoe with my cousin Tommy one summer, and he got distracted and dropped his end, and given that he was a good inch taller than I was —“ Patrick makes a little karate chopping motion across David’s hip bone. “Took over an hour to stop the bleeding, I couldn’t stop trying to get a better look at it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>David shudders. “Gross.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aw, come on David. You never wanted to look?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At the blood that should be </span>
  <em>
    <span>inside </span>
  </em>
  <span>my body? No, thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know,” Patrick says, his voice quiet and soft, like it goes when he’s talking about new plans for the store, future events and profit projections. “It’s such a big force in such a little thing.” He’s babbling a little, slurring the line between his vowels and his consonants, but his hands are still tracing soft paths across David’s skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re odd, Patrick Brewer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So are you, David Rose.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And they both know that’s the truth. Silence falls between them, and David feels his eyes growing heavy. He doesn’t want to close them, doesn’t want to pass from this moment into the sleep that will press fast forward into the next day. It’s quiet for long enough that it startles David when Patrick speaks again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here. What about here?” He’s dragging a thumb across David’s hip bone, rubbing a gentle circle where the skin stretches thinnest over the bone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tattoo.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No way.” That sends Patrick vertical, his elbow underneath him and his eyes wide as he looks down at David. “Turn on the light and let me see!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>David turns his face into his hand and bites the inside of his cheek.  He feels heat flooding his face, flushing over the rest of his body. He shakes his head. “There’s really nothing to see. It didn’t heal well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Didn’t heal well?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was young, okay, and —” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“David Rose, did you get an illegal tattoo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No! Chet was very kind, and his room was </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>clean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“His room?!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He...okay, so I don’t entirely remember the details, and Justin Long was </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>nice about it, but the whole thing got infected and. Let’s just say it doesn’t actually look like much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Patrick gets a little wrinkle in his brow, his thumb pressing a little harder on the raised skin. David remembers how hot his skin had been to the touch, how he’d made Alexis take him to the clinic for a round of antibiotics so he didn’t have to make any unfortunate explanations to Adelina. For a split second he’d been worried he’d end up with, like, blood poisoning or something, but it never got much worse than a mild infection and the utter shame of Alexis never letting him live it down. “What was it supposed to be,” Patrick asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A rose bud. A little one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like the logo?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh,” David says, because truly he never realized but. “Yeah, actually. Not quite the same, but not far off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve been carrying this with you for a long time, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This?” David sits up to match Patrick, his elbow on the mattress beneath him. He smirks and presses a kiss to the column of Patrick’s throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The store. Or, the idea of the store. The idea of the idea of the store, maybe. A little seed of this project.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hmm. A little seed, I see what you did there.” Patrick laughs and his chin tilts back, so David presses forward and nips at his jawline. David’s breath catches and he smiles, wide and indulgent. “Maybe you’re not entirely wrong. Not in any kind of way I could have articulated, but. Maybe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Definitely.” Patrick said. “You just needed the right partner to make it bloom.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Again, absolutely killing it with the flower metaphors,” he presses his grin into Patrick’s soft flesh, into the place where his neck meets his shoulder, running his lips and teeth and tongue across the same inch of skin until Patrick is wiggling beneath him and there’s a brilliantly red spot when David pulls away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks at Patrick’s face and presses his index finger against the thin scar that cuts his eyebrow, angular and small. “This one?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Somali pirates.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Naturally.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or was it skydiving in Burma with the Dali Lama?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Haha.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Patrick’s smile cuts through the shadow of the apartment like a beacon. His chest is still shaking with a little laugh, and he catches David’s hand and presses a kiss to his fingertip. “I got into a fight when I was seven.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A fight? How aggressive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, she beat the crap out of me, so.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait, </span>
  <em>
    <span>she</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“David, don’t be misogynistic.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He snorts. “Please. Alexis. Fork. Remember? I have no trouble believing that a girl kicked your ass. I’m just surprised you put yourself in a place for her to do that.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, she kept calling my best friend Brad a dick-face and I thought that was rude.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You knew a seven year old who said dick-face?” David has a certain amount of admiration in his voice. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She had an older brother. Anyway, she just wouldn’t stop, and when I tried yelling her into stopping, she decked me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>David makes a little ‘aw’ sound in the back of his throat and Patrick rolls his eyes, but there’s a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “My mom said it’s what I deserved for not going to an adult and my dad said it was what I deserved for not keeping my fists up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what did dear little Brad have to say about all this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t really know. The two of them were dating by the following recess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“After you fought for his honor like that? Now </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>is rude.” David sounds like he’s legitimately offended on Patrick’s part, and it’s so sweet, so ridiculous, that Patrick leans forward and licks into David’s mouth, presses him back until he’s flat against the bed again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He kisses him, slow and deep, and shivers when David’s finger traces the scar on his eyebrow again, memorizing Patrick’s body with his own. </span>
</p>
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